The D-E community enjoyed an excellent Jazz Brunch Concert in Hajjar Auditorium on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024—one of the School’s highly anticipated musical events.
This year’s brunch featured the Stage Band and Jazz Workshop ensembles, directed by longtime Music Teacher Rob DeBellis, performing music by jazz great Oliver Nelson, including “Hobo Flats” and “Kilimanjaro,” along with other jazz classics.
The concert spotlighted solo voices that lean toward improvisation. Says Mr. DeBellis, “Jazz is built on improvisation.”
Mr. DeBellis is a working woodwinds musician, who has been a chair holder on Broadway’s The Lion King, playing clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute, for the past 18 years.
He started at Dwight-Englewood in 1985 and inherited the Jazz Rock program, which he developed from a student-run club without an advisor to a beloved musical tradition at D-E.
“Jazz Rock instantly became super popular,” says Mr. DeBellis.
The band, which now has 13 lead vocalists and multiple instrumentalists, annually performs an Upper School concert that kicks off the Winter Break.
Stage Band, primarily focused on jazz standards, became a part of D-E’s Performing Arts Department in 1987. It, too, was directed by Mr. DeBellis, who brought the idea of the Jazz Brunch to life. In the spring, the program’s Cabaret Night reflects a jazz club setting in Hajjar Auditorium with guest jazz artists such as Don Byron, Eddie Allen, and Marty Ehrlich, all of whom are friends and colleagues of Mr. DeBellis.
Jazz Workshop was created six to seven years ago as an opportunity for freshmen and sophomores to practice jazz fundamentals, says DeBellis. “It’s to prepare them for what we do in Stage Band,” he says. “We have only four people in the group [this year], but they are phenomenal.”
For the Jazz Brunch, Jazz Workshop, accompanied by Stage Band, played on “Now’s The Time,” a piece by Ray Bryant.
Mr. DeBellis is also among the accomplished musicians who teach students one-on-one as part of D-E 360°’s Private Music Lessons Program. The popular program is led by Dean of Performing Arts Adam Slee and has become an incubator of Upper School talent.
“We’re happy to make space for these professional musicians,”
says Dr. Sherronda Brown, Director of D-E 360°.
When teaching or directing, Mr. DeBellis says, “I give students as much agency and control as possible.” Under his lead and after 37 years of putting on jazz concerts, many D-E students have gone on to become professional players. These include Sid Khosla ’94, an Emmy-winning TV composer; Brian Gitkin ’90, an indie rock musician; saxophonist Nick Lyons ’20; violinist Jesse Mills ’97; and Malachi Samedy ’22, a multi-instrumentalist and composer currently attending Berklee College of Music.
“Our biggest strength [at D-E] is having a professional teaching faculty—almost all of us are out playing in the New York scene,” says Mr. DeBellis. “It’s more like a college music faculty that brings a certain perspective, energy, and vibrancy to our program that our students latch on to.”
